


A drop in your ocean

by Hagar



Series: Life of Miriam [1]
Category: Jewish Scripture & Legend, Midrash - Fandom, תנ"ך | Tanakh
Genre: Book: Exodus, Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Community: purimgifts, Gen, Midrash, POV Female Character, Prophecy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-13 20:40:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1240084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every once in a while someone says something spiteful about her name. Miriam smiles, and does not say: <i>It is you who is bitter. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	A drop in your ocean

**Author's Note:**

  * For [opalmatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/gifts).



> Title from Etti Ankri's song of the same title: _"Oh, my Lord/Let the Time of Reaping/Not come to pass/Let the evil in me not take root/And until my strength runs out//Here I am/A drop in your ocean."_

 

Every once in a while someone says something spiteful about her name. Miriam smiles, and does not say: _It is you who is bitter._ In truth they all are, justifiably so. Bitter is the life of a slave, let alone a Hebrew slave in the Land of Egypt, in this House of Bondage.

Is it not bitter, when the Pharaoh decrees that any male babe be thrown into the River Nile? Is it not bitter, to cast out your wife so that you need not cast your future children into the river to drown? Is it not bitter, when every man feels compelled to follow the most righteous among them, and cast their wives out of their lives?

Miriam had been all of seven years old when she had thrown that in her father’s face, telling him that in leading the People to that, he was crueler than the Pharaoh. She had also told him that should he follow through with it he would rolling a heavy stone over the spring of their salvation, for Miriam’s mother’s next child would be the one to deliver them all from the Land of Egypt, from this House of Bondage.

No wives had been cast out that day, and when next the midwives came they took Miriam of all the girls to service them. Miriam had said not a word, for she would have placed herself with the midwives anyway; for who better than a midwife, to know how to sooth?

Seven years old, and Miriam had already known for some time that she had a calling and that it was to sooth, to sweeten this ocean of her People’s bitter tears, for which she had been named: _Mar-yam._

Ten years old, and Miriam delivered a baby all by herself, her littlest brother, the one who would grow up to deliver them all.

At seven she had faced down her father and at ten she faced up to the princess. She had seen her brother conceived, delivered, pulled from the river; she had brought her mother back home so that she may bear Miriam’s brother, and she led her mother by the hand through the palace’s halls so that she may nurse him with both milk and words, all so he could grow and become who he was meant to be.

And every once in a while, someone says something bitter about Miriam’s name. Miriam does not mind, because that man’s fellows hush him and remind him of what Miriam is, what the People call her when no Egyptian is nearby to overhear: for she is the Prophet Miriam, sent to sweeten the ocean of her People’s bitter tears.


End file.
